Venice Film Festival Jury Information courtesy of Venice Film Festival

This year’s president will be Oscar-winning director Ang Lee.

Six new members have been appointed for the International Jury of the competition section at the 66th Venice International Film Festival – presided by the twice Golden Lion Ang Lee – which will award the official Prizes in the edition that will take place September 2 to 12 2009, directed by Marco Müller and organized by the Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta.

The personalities invited to form the Jury of Venezia 66, presided by director Ang Lee, are: actress Sandrine Bonnaire, one of the most important protagonists of French cinema, the star of the Golden Lion-winning film Vagabond (Sans toit ni loi, 1985) by Agnés Varda, and the winner of the 1995 Coppa Volpi for A Judgement in Stone (La cérémonie) by Claude Chabrol; director Liliana Cavani, filmmaker and intellectual leader of Italian cinema and a protagonist several times in Venice since her debut with Primo piano: Philippe Petain, processo a Vichy (Lion of Saint Mark Award for Best Television Documentary, 1965) and with her first feature-length film Francis of Assisi (Francesco d’Assisi, 1966); American director Joe Dante, the great anti-conformist innovator of Hollywood movies and master of fantasy filmmaking (The Howling, Gremlins, Small Soldiers), and in 2004 “godfather” of the Venetian retrospective “Italian Kings of the B’s”; the director and screenwriter Anurag Kashyap, one of the major exponents of contemporary Indian cinema (Black Friday and this year’s great success DEV.D); the singer-songwriter, writer and director Luciano Ligabue, one of the key figures of Italian pop culture, author in 1998 of the youth cult-film Radiofreccia, presented in Venice and winner of three David di Donatello awards and two Silver Ribbons; Sergei Bodrov, one of the most famous filmmakers on the international scene, who also works in the United States, a director and screenwriter twice nominated for an Oscar (for the recent Mongol and Prisoner of the Caucasus).

On the closing night of the Venice Film Festival (September 12, 2009), the International Jury of Venezia 66 will award the following prizes to the feature films in competition: the Golden Lion for Best Film, the Silver Lion for Best Director, the Special Jury Prize, the Coppa Volpi for Best Actor, the Coppa Volpi for Best Actress, the Marcello Mastroianni Prize for Best New Young Actor or Actress, the Osella for Best Technical Contribution, the Osella for Best Screenplay.

In recent years, the juries for the competition have awarded the Golden Lion to: Vera Drake by Mike Leigh (2004), Brokeback Mountain by Ang Lee (2005), Still Life (Sanxia Haoren) by Jia Zhang Ke (2006), Lust, Caution (Se, Jie)by Ang Lee (2007) and The Wrestler by Darren Aronofsky (2008).

Biographical notes

Ang Lee (director – Taiwan, president)

Born and raised in Taiwan, Ang Lee moved to the United States in 1978. After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theater from the University of Illinois, he went on to New York University to complete a Masters of Fine Arts Degree in film production. At NYU, his short film Fine Line won Best Director and Best Film Awards at the NYU Film Festival. Lee’s first feature film, Pushing Hands, was screened at the 1992 Berlin Film Festival and won Best Film at the Asian-Pacific Film Festival. The film was nominated for nine Golden Horse Awards, the Taiwanese equivalent to the Oscar. It was also the first film in Lee’s Father Knows Best trilogy. His next film, The Wedding Banquet, premiered at the 1993 Berlin Festival, where it won the festival’s top prize and went on to international acclaim. The film received Best-Foreign Language Film nominations from the Academy Awards and the Golden Globe Awards. The film also received six Independent Spirit Awards. It was the second film in Lee’s Father Knows Best trilogy.

Lee’s third feature film Eat Drink Man Woman, was the final entry in the trilogy. The film was selected as the opening night film for the Directors Fortnight section at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, and received Best Foreign-Language Film by the National Board of Review.

In 1995, Lee directed Sense and Sensibility, starring Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant. The film, adapted by Emma Thompson from Jane Austen’s novel of the same name, was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won the award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film also received Golden Globe Awards for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Cited on more than 100 critics’ Ten Best lists, the film was named Best Picture by the Boston Film Critics and the National Board of Review. Lee was named Best Director by the New York Film Critics Circle, as well as by the Boston Society of Film Critics. When it was shown at the 1996 Berlin Film Festival, the film won the festival’s top prize.

Ang next directed 1997’s The Ice Storm, adapted by James Schamus from Rick Moody’s novel. The film starred Joan Allen, Kevin Klein, Sigourney Weaver, Christina Ricci and Tobey Maguire. The Ice Storm premiered at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival and was selected as the opening night film of the 1997 New York Film Festival. It went on to become one of the year’s best reviewed films. The same year Ang e also directed the epical period drama Ride with the Devil starring Tobey McGuire.

In 2000, Lee directed the highly acclaimed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and won Best Picture at the Toronto Film Film Festival. Ang received a Golden Globe Award and a Directors Guild Award for Best Director. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won 4 Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Film. Lee also directed the smash hit The Hulk for Universal Studios, starring Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly.

In 2005, Lee directed the Focus Features film Brokeback Mountain, based on the novella by Annie Proulx. It starred Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, and in won the Golden Lion Award for Best Picture at the 2005 Venice Film Festival. The film went on to receive DGA, Golden Globe and several Academy Awards, including the Academy Award for “Best Director.”

Lee’s most recent film was 2007’s Lust, Caution, a WWII-era espionage thriller set in Shanghai, adapted from the short story by Eileen Chang. The film starred Tang Wei, Joan Chen and Tony Leung. Lust, Caution was awarded the Golden Lion Award for Best Picture at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, won seven Golden Horse Awards and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2008 Golden Globe Awards.

Ang latest work is Taking Woodstock, based on Elliot Tiber’s autobiography about the events leading up to the Woodstock concert in 1969. The film stars Demetri Martin.

Sandrine Bonnaire (actress – France)

Sandrine Bonnaire was born in Gannat, in Auvergne (France) and grew up in Grigny, in Essonne. The seventh of eleven siblings, she made her debut in movies as an adolescent with a small part in La boum 2, thanks to the father of one of her schoolmates who was responsible for casting the extras. Accompanying her sister Lydia for a screen test, she met director Maurice Pialat, who chose her for the leading role in Meurtrières, a project that was later abandoned. But Pialat did not forget her and chose her for To our loves (A nos amours, 1983). Her interpretation won her a César as the Best Young Actress, and she became a star in her country. In 1985 Bonnaire was in the cast of another film by Pialat, Police, with Gérard Depardieu and Sophie Marceau, presented in Venice. The same year she won her second César, as best actress for Vagabond (Sans toit ni loi) by Agnès Varda. In 1987, she was again directed by Pialat in Under Satan’s Sun (Sous le soleil de Satan) and the following year co-starred with Daniel Auteuil in A Few Days with Me (Quelques jours avec moi, 1988) by Claude Sautet. Then, she played the part of Alice in the film by Patrice Leconte Monsieur Hire (1989) and was the star of Captive of the Desert (La captive du Dèsert, 1990) by Raymond Depardon, followed by Towards Evening (Verso sera, 1990) by Francesca Archibugi and The Sky Above Paris (Le Ciel de Paris, 1991) by Michel Béna. On the set of the film by Luis Puenzo The Plague (La peste, 1992), from the novel by Albert Camus, Sandrine Bonnaire met William Hurt, who would become her partner. In 1994, she was Joan of Arc in Joan the Maid 2 – The Prisons (Jeanne la Pucelle II – Les prisons) by Jacques Rivette. In 1995 she won the Coppa Volpi for Best Actress in Venice, ex æquo with Isabelle Huppert for A Judgement in Stone (La cérémonie) by Claude Chabrol. With Chabrol, Bonnaire also acted in The Color of Lies (Au Coeur du mensonge, 1999) and the same year she starred in the film by Régis Wargnier East-West (Est-Ouest, 1999), with Oleg Menshikov and Catherine Deneuve. In 1998 she returned to Venice as the star of Stolen Life (Voleur de vie) by Yves Angelo.

Joe Dante (director – United States)

Joe Dante (Morristown, New Jersey, 1948), studied at the Philadelphia College of Art where he directs a fanzine about horror films, called “Castle of Frankenstein”. In 1968 he made his first feature film, an experimental film lasting 420’ which he made by splicing together pieces of B-movies: The Movie Orgy (Cheeseburger Film Sandwich). After graduation he decided to work in film and in 1974 he joined Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, which two years later offered, almost as a joke, to have him produce a film on a 50,000 dollar budget. Joe accepted the challenge and the result was Hollywood Boulevard (1976), which he filmed with Allan Arkush and alludes specifically to the world of B-movies. His consecration came with Piranha (1978, from a screenplay by John Sayles) and The Howling (1981), which attracted the attention of Steven Spielberg, who invited him to film an episode of The Twilight Zone – The Movie (1983) with him, John Landis and George Miller. In 1984 he achieved international fame with Gremlins, an unusual horror fairy tale in an irreverent and non-conformist vein. In 1985 he directed Explorers and simultaneously worked in television with Amazing Stories (1985). Again with John Landis and other directors, he filmed one of the episodes of the comedy Amazon Women on the Moon (1986). In 1997 he filmed Innerspace produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin, winning the Oscar for special effects. Following The ‘Burbs (1989) with Tom Hanks, the director returned to comedy, spiced with humour and nostalgia for classic movies, in Matinée (1993), which won great critical acclaim, equal to the irreverent The Second Civil War (1997), presented in Venice, and Small Soldiers (1998). In 1998 the Locarno Film Festival awarded him the Leopard of Honor and the following year dedicated a complete retrospective of his works to him. In 2003 he delved into animation: based on the Warner Bros. cartoon characters, Looney Tunes: Back in Action starred Brendan Fraser, John Cusack and Timothy Dalton. In 2005 and 2006 he was the protagonist of the Turin Film Festival, presenting two episodes from the series “Masters of Horror” (Homecoming and The Screwfly Solution).

Liliana Cavani (director – Italy)

Liliana Cavani graduated in Classical Studies at the University of Bologna. In 1960 she enrolled in the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia; she earned her diploma with the short films Incontro notturno (1961) and L’evento (1962), which address the theme of discrimination. Winner of a competition for RAI national television, through 1965 she worked on and completed a series of thematic documentaries focusing on various aspects of World War II: La storia del Terzo Reich, Le donne della Resistenza and L’età di Stalin. In 1965 her work Primo piano: Philippe Petain, processo a Vichy won the Lion of Saint Mark Award for the best television documentary at the Venice International Film Festival. The following year, she made her debut with her first feature-length film: Francis of Assisi (Francesco d’Assisi) applauded at the Venice International Film Festival, and not released in movie theatres until three years later. The following film Galileo Galilei (Galileo, 1968), in competition in Venice, dealt with the problematic relationship between intellectuals and power, while the intense The Cannibals (I cannibali, 1969), also presented in Venice, offered a reflection on the crimes perpetrated by authorities; based on Sophocles’ “Antigone”, it starred Pierre Clémenti, Britt Ekland, Tomas Milian and Delia Boccardo. In 1971 Cavani made a series of television documentaries entitled I bambini e noi (1970). After a painful story of social exclusion in The Guest (L’ospite, 1971), the director began a suggestive exploration of oriental mystiques in Milarepa (1974). That same year she filmed her masterpiece The Night Porter (Il portiere di notte, 1974), a ruthless exploration of Nazism through the story of an ambiguous relationship between a Jewish girl and her former prison guard. Controversy also surrounded the release, in 1977, of the film Beyond Good and Evil (Al di là del bene e del male) while in 1981 The Skin (La pelle) from the homonymous novel by Curzio Malaparte starring Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale and Burt Lancaster, was received favorably by the critics at the Cannes Film Festival. She continued to direct prestigious casts in Behind the Door (Oltre la porta, 1982), also presented in Venice, with Tom Berenger, Michel Piccoli and Marcello Mastroianni; The Berlin Affair (Interno berlinese, 1985); St. Francis of Assisi (Francesco, 1989) with an intense Mickey Rourke and Where are you? I’m here (Dove siete? Io sono qui, 1993), in competition in Venice. She also directed many lyric operas for the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Ravenna Festival, and for theatres such as l’Opéra de Paris and La Scala in Milan: “Cavalleria Rusticana” (1996) and “Manon Lescaut”. She returned to directing in 2002 with Ripley’s Game (Il gioco di Ripley) again with Chiara Caselli, presented out of competition in Venice. Her encounter with Claudia Mori led to two films for RAI Fiction: De Gasperi (2005) and Einstein (2008).

Anurag Kashyap (screenwriter, director – India)

Born in 1972 at Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, Anurag Kashyap grew up in various Indian cities. Since his early childhood he was fascinated by the big screen in open-air movie theatres. In 1993 he graduated in zoology at the University of Delhi, but during his studies, he got involved in street theatre and later in film. He began to explore the work of many non-Indian directors, attending the International Film Festival of India, where he saw one of the films that would leave a profound impression on him, The Bicycle Thief (Ladri di biciclette) by Vittorio de Sica, which for the young Anurag turned out to be “an epiphany”. In 1998 he wrote the screenplay for the film Satya by Ram Gopal Varma, which won great critical and public acclaim. His fruitful relationship with Varma continued in 1999 with the fim Kaun? and in 2000 with Shool. The same year he wrote the screenplay for Jung directed by Sanjay Gupta. His debut as a director soon came with Paanch (2000), which has yet to be released because of problems with the Indian Censor Board. In 2000 his short film Last Train to Mahakali won the Special Jury Award at the Star Screen Awards. In 2004 he won international consecration at the Locarno Film Festival with the presentation of Black Friday (2004), a controversial and award-winning film on the 1993 bombings in Bombay that caused 183 victims, which later won an award at the Indian Film Festival in Los Angeles. This film was distributed in Indian theatres after a three-year delay because the High Court of India had issued an order that the film not be distributed before the end of the trial of the suspects responsible for the massacre. The film is rich in quotations: from Dante’s Inferno to the choreography of Bob Fosse, through the Nouvelle Vague, soap operas, western action movies and the action movies of Hong Kong. The film also led Danny Boyle to appoint Kashyap to find the locations in Mumbai for Slumdog Millionaire (2008). Also in 2004, Kashyap wrote the dialogues for Yuva by Mani Ratnam (2004). In 2007, the black comedy No Smoking brought to the screen “Quitters, Inc.”, a short story by Stephen King, which was well received by the critics. In 2008 he made the animation film Hanuman Returns, based on ancient myths reinterpreted in a modern key.

This year he directed two films, Dev.D (2009) and Gulaal (2009). The first, a reinterpretation of the popular novel Devdas, written in 1917 by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, tells about the impossible love story between Dev and Paro, divided by insurmountable problems of class (he is rich and she is poor). The protagonist, interpreted by the young Abhay Deol, seeks vainly to forget her, seeking solace with prostitutes, alcohol and drugs. The second is a detective [sic] story interpreted by Kay Kay Menon, who falsifies the university elections to shift funds to a separatist movement.

Luciano Ligabue (director, writer, rockstar – Italy)

Born in 1960 in Correggio in the Italian province of Reggio Emilia, Luciano Ligabue is one of the best-loved artists of all time on the musical scene in Italy. A singer who writes his own songs, he has released 14 albums (including previously unpublished works, live LPs, soundtracks and greatest hits collections), all of which shot to success thanks to tracks which directly penetrated the hearts of generation after generation. A mainstay of the live scene he has toured all over Italy, including the show at Campovolo in Reggio Emilia which went down in the annals of history.

So far, he has made two incursions into the world of cinema: in 1998, he directed the film Radiofreccia, based on the tales from his book “Fuori e dentro il borgo”; presented out of competition at the Venice International Film Festival, the film was greeted with great enthusiasm by the audience and critics alike, subsequently picking up numerous awards (three David di Donatellos, two Silver Ribbons and three Golden Ciaks). In 2001 he took his place in the director’s chair once again to shoot his second film, From Zero to Ten (Da zero a dieci), screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002 during the Semaine Internationale de la Critique. Author of a volume of short stories, a novel and a collection of poetry, all of which were very well received, he has two children and still lives in his hometown Correggio.

by: www.examiner.com

Damon plays ‘Informant’ in Soderbergh film

Matt Damon plays a pathological liar in Steven Soderbergh’s “The Informant!” – the true-life story of an agribusiness executive who blows the whistle on his company’s price fixing schemes with international competitors.

Soderbergh said Monday at the Venice Film Festival, where his comedy is showing out of competition, that lying plays an important function in life – as long as the lies don’t get out of hand.

“I think lying is very important and necessary. It does take a lot of energy. It is one of the ways I stay thin,” Soderbergh told reporters.

Damon didn’t have that luxury for the role of Mark Whitacre, an Archer Daniels Midland executive who exposed the price fixing-scandal while covering up his own million-dollar path of extortion. He had to both lie, a lot, and put on 30 pounds (14 kilograms) for the role.

“It was very, very easy to gain the weight. Very, very fun,” Damon said. “I just basically ate everything I could see for a few months.”

Soderbergh first talked to Damon about doing the role seven years ago. They did three other movies in the meantime.

In Soderbergh’s words: “Seven years of foreplay and then a quickie.”

“Steven’s theory on comedy is you make sure the screenplay is perfect, and then you shoot the actual production really, really fast,” Damon said. “So that is what we did. We stewed on the script for seven years, and then shot this film in 30-something days.”

At up to eight pages a day, Damon said the pace was close to a television schedule.

Soderbergh said he purposely did not meet the real Mark Whitacre before filming – in contrast to “Erin Brockovich” and his two films about revolutionary Che Guevara, for which he tried to meet everyone involved in the real story that he could.

“The strange thing is, that Whitacre has seen the film and has said it was very accurate,” Soderbergh said. “Maybe on ‘Che’ and ‘Erin,’ I was wasting my time.”

by: www.seattlepi.com

‘Life During Wartime’ quasi-sequel to ‘Happiness’

Todd Solondz assembles the same characters from 1998′s “Happiness” but an entirely different cast for his latest film “Life During Wartime,” premiering Thursday at the Venice Film Festival.

The extended Jordan family is mostly living in Florida, its shopping malls and superstores, condos and gated communities forming the “a clean and pristine” backdrop, or as Solondz dubbed it, “The Land of Generica.”

“I didn’t ever think I would go back to these characters. They certainly haven’t haunted me,” Solondz said Thursday. “Once I started to write, I wanted to feel free to play with the characters anyway I wanted. … If I wanted to make a white character black. Some characters age 20 years, some five.

“People say, why not just make a totally different movie? Maybe that is what I did in the end.”

The director said the movie is more political than the first, but he was at a loss to classify it, calling it both a “a quasi-sequel variation” and “something of a post-traumatic-stress-disorder kind of movie.”

There’s a lot of traumatic stress to recover from.

Trish, played by Allison Janney, has told everyone, including her young son, that her pedophile husband is dead, avoiding the truth that he has been in prison and freeing herself to fall in love with Harvey, played by Michael Lerner.

Her sister Joy, played Shirley Henderson, has just learned that her husband Allen (Michael Kenneth Williams as the character played in “Happiness” by Philip Seymour Hoffman) is not a reformed pervert, as she had believed. While the third sister, Helen, played by Alley Sheedy, has fled the madness to Los Angeles.

The movie deals with the issues of forgiving and forgetting, themes examined from several characters’ points of view.

Charlotte Rampling is the most wizened on the topic, as Jaqueline, who says while picking up a man (Harvey) at a hotel bar: “Only losers ask for forgiveness. Only losers expect to get it.”

“I put it out there not to dictate a response obviously,” Solondz said. “We all have different philosophical and religious convictions. I just ask the audience to open itself up to the experience.”

Jackson, as the character of Joy originally played Jane Adams in “Happiness,” said she didn’t realize at the audition that this project was reprising the same characters as “Happiness,” a movie she had seen but hadn’t remembered in detail.

“I tried not to worry about the original Joy,” Jackson said. “I obviously watched it just to pick up little things that might make it interesting. I can’t be her, I can’t do what she did. I have to do my own version.”

“Life During Wartime” is among more than 20 films competing for the Golden Lion in the Sept. 2-12 festival.

by: AP